Rowan Greenwood wanted a place in the royal huntsman's guard. He needed to reach the trials in the capital to earn it. But the only road out of Ironwillow was closed. A beast had mauled three travelers on it that week, and no one dared leave. He stood at the edge of town and studied the tree line. His fox pressed against his leg, copper fur bristling. The animal smelled it first, the thing in the shadows. Rowan pulled his steel bow off his back and set a gold-tipped arrow to the string. "Stay," he told the fox. The fox did not stay. It darted ahead, nose low, tracking a scent toward a huge tree with blue leaves and dark purple fruit. Rowan followed. Under the tree the air went cold. A low growl rolled out from behind the black trunk. The beast stepped into the light. It was bigger than a bull, with matted fur and a torn ear and teeth the length of his fingers. Dried blood crusted its jaw. The travelers' blood. It charged. Rowan loosed his first arrow. It struck the shoulder and glanced off thick muscle. The beast did not slow. He stumbled back, drew again, and fired at the throat. That arrow dug in, but the thing kept coming. He had one shot left before those teeth reached him. Then the light changed. A woman stood under the tree where no one had been. Her hair was violet and her eyes were violet. A great eagle gripped a staff at her side. Rowan knew her. She was the goddess who had blessed his arrows long ago, the reason he dared to hunt at all. He had not seen her since he was a boy. "Breathe," she said. "Then shoot." Rowan breathed. He raised the bow a final time and aimed for the eye. He let the arrow fly. It did not miss. The gold tip punched through, and the beast dropped mid-stride. It slid to a stop at his boots, dead. Silence. The fox crept out from the roots and sniffed the body. Rowan's hands shook on the steel grip. "You could have killed it without me," he said. "You could have." The goddess smiled. "But you forgot to trust the blessing. You will need to remember that soon." She looked past him, toward the road and the capital beyond it. The eagle shifted its wings. "The trials are not what you think," she said. "The men who run the guard do not care if your aim is true. They care about other things. Things you have never had to fight for." Then she was gone, like a candle pinched out. Rowan stood alone with the dead beast and the open road. The way to the capital was clear now. He slung his bow and started walking. He did not yet understand her warning. But he would.

Rowan reached the capital by midday. Gray walls rose above clustered rooftops, and a wide gate let the crowd through. Candidates for the guard trials filled the square. They stood in loose groups, trading stories, sizing each other up. Rowan found a spot near a fountain and waited. His fox pressed against his boot. He did not know a single face here. A tall man broke from a knot of candidates and walked straight at him. He wore a scarred vest and moved like he owned the stones. Rowan had seen his kind in the village square, the ones who talk loud so others listen. "Look at this," the man said. He flicked a finger at Rowan's bow. "A backwoods boy with a shiny stick. Did your mother buy you that?" Laughter rippled through the nearest group. Rowan kept his face still. "I shot my way here. Same as you." "You smell like a farm." The man turned to the others, grinning. "He'll waste a slot a real hunter could fill. Watch him break on the first test." The candidates drifted after the man, leaving Rowan alone by the fountain. Rowan's jaw tightened. He thought of the lord's words, nobody with a borrowed bow. The same insult, new mouth. He wanted to shout that this bow was his father's gift. But words had never won him anything. Then a horn sounded. A guard officer climbed the fountain steps and raised a hand. "First trial," he called. "A white wolf runs loose in the lower quarter. It has bitten two children. Bring it down or drive it out. The guard watches how you do it." The candidates surged toward the alleys. The scarred man ran at the front, shouting orders no one followed. Rowan did not chase the crowd. He crouched and set a hand on his fox. "Find it." The fox shot off down a quiet lane. Rowan followed through narrow streets, away from the mob. The fox stopped at a dead end. The white wolf stood cornered against a wall, ribs heaving, one paw torn and bleeding. It was starving, not hunting. The others would have killed it on sight. Rowan drew a gold-tipped arrow and nocked it. The steel bow felt warm in his grip. He breathed, the way the goddess once taught him. Then he lowered the point. He stepped aside and left the mouth of the alley open. The wolf bolted past him, through a gap, out toward the open gate and the hills beyond. The fox watched it go. When Rowan returned to the square, the officer was waiting. He had seen the whole thing from a rooftop. "The others treed a stray and lost the real one," the officer said. "You drove it out without a corpse. The guard notices that." He wrote something on a slate. The scarred man stood nearby, mud on his vest, saying nothing now. The candidates who had laughed looked at Rowan differently. He had passed. But the scarred man watched him with a new, colder hate.